He was dressed in black, all black, from his wingtips to his overcoat, from his sunglasses to his fedora. And pale -- oh, God pale! -- like an albino maggot, but he had a cute face. I liked the look of him even though he had the dead gravity of an undertaker and kept his hands under the table like he was playing pocket pool. I asked him what he wanted, and he told me.
"Coffee. Black." Like his hair. Shiny, made of waves. I sighed and went to fetch his order.
"Hey, Rochelle. This you gotta see."
The guy who signaled me wore a black t-shirt. On the front was your usual LGM shooting the finger. I knew from a few passes on coffee rounds the back read, "Fuck you, Earthling." I think the guy's name was Mike. He might have been a semi-regular here, but I couldn't be sure. The faces all blend together once they get wired on coffee and pie. He seemed to know me, either from my face or my nametag. Either way it was my job to keep the ball rolling, so I ambled over his way. Sixteen hours on my feet. Boy did they hurt.
There was quite a crowd around Mike (we'll go with Mike, yeah) and another fellow: small, slick with a collegiate beard and glasses. He was showing off several blurred photos of a man in an apesuit -- Bigfoot, I presume -- who was looking straight at the camera and pointing fearfully at a dim, saucer-shaped object in the evening sky.
"That's quite a shot you've got there," I remarked with just enough condescension to get a few chuckles. Weird Beard was a bare-assed kid mucking around a lion's den. He was a huckster trying to sell a few shoddy photos to folks he'd deemed "marks" or even "wackos." I admit some of the wide-eyed strangers who roll through could use a good, old-fashioned "life," but they were the genuine article enthusiasts. They were an interesting cross-section of humanity who just happened be different, but they weren't stupid. They simply believed. Foolish you say? So why don't you stop reading here and nestle into the Bible for comfort?
Weird Beard definitely didn't believe. He was grinning like a possum ordering the casserole de kaka. He thought he had them, but really it was the other way around. When they'd had their fun they would politely ask him to leave, and there was nothing for it but to let them go. The only house rule: the clientele governs. I'm just a mediator who happens to sling coffee and bake pie. We've got an army consisting of one 300-pound, black short order cook named Muncey who doesn't like to be reminded there's a world outside his kitchen; he deals with any real conflict. Weird Beard was a lightweight, though. Once he realized the joke was on him he'd burn a streak out the door, back to his janitor's closet at Harvard or wherever it was he was from. I left the boys to their fun and took Pale Rider his -- black -- coffee.
"An interesting place you have," he remarked. "I've been listening to the regulars. They have some pretty odd ideas."
I snorted. "Honey, this is the Nowhere Café. There's no such thing as a regular here." I softened my tone. "You really have to love the people who come through. They're just a bunch of misfits with something in common. They've got a lot to say and very few people who are willing to offer an honest ear. This is a place where they can share information."
He sipped from his cup: no sugar, no cream. Yech. "What about the Internet? Aren't there a thousand sites for them to post their information?"
"Yeah, but man is a social animal. He likes to talk face-to-face sometimes. The Internet's too cold." I'd heard stories about the harshness of the ol' square-headed girlfriend. Me, I'm celibate by choice these days, not by disposition.
Pale Rider nodded to say he understood. "'The difficulty of savages is they want to be civilized.'"
I was sure I'd heard that somewhere.
"Are you a writer?" I asked.
"No."
I sighed. Oh, well. There's one fantasy out the window. "We've had more than our share of tabloid journalists in here," I said, hoping to make a smooth recovery, "and kooks who think they're Hemingway. Never had a real writer, though."
"Take heart. It's a small enough world."
I couldn't help but smile. He was very sweet. "How about a refill, stranger?"
"Thanks."
I didn't ask questions, the hows, the whys, or even the where-are-you-froms or what-do-you-dos. That was another of the rules. The people who came and went had reasons for being here, and as waitress I was there for their pleasure, not the other way around. Usually travelers couldn't wait to tell you where they were from or what they did. That's something I've never understood about traveling. If you love where you're from so much, why spend your precious vacations elsewhere? Some people must have that traveling bone, I suppose.
I left Pale Rider and wandered back to the counter just in time for Muncey to send me to Table Five with a plate of eggs over easy and dry toast.
"I read somewhere SETI's switching to lasers," a bearded guy at Table Five was telling his table mate, a man who was a dead ringer for Bill Gates. I glanced up at Pale Rider nearby. He was eavesdropping on Bearded Guy and Bill with genuine curiosity. Feeling an indescribable urge to impress our newcomer I said, "About time. They've been considering lasers since the '60s. Yeah. I think I read the same article. Toomes first proposed advanced civilizations might use lasers to communicate as far back as you guys' college days. A laser can hold more information than radio waves."
"Nah," Bill argued. "It's got to be Alpha waves. Think of the rapid increase of cancer cases in the 20th century. That would coincide directly with the increase in UFO sightings. They're either trying to communicate with us, or they're sending messages back to their home world. Either way, they're killing us off as a species.
"Lasers would never work anyway," he went on. "The light would break up if it collided with a nebula. Gotta be Alpha waves." He waved his hand as if to dismiss me, and their conversation shifted wholly towards radiation. The look on Pale Rider's face dropped off then and fell even further when they shifted less than fifteen seconds later to alien autopsy and anatomy. I moved back to our mysterious stranger's table under the pretense of refilling his cup.
"You know," I said, "we are pretty close to Roswell out here. You shouldn't get too shocked at our discussions. You're likely to hear worse before you pay your check."
"Hmm? Oh. Oh, yes. You're right."
Remembering the look I'd seen earlier I harbored a guess. "Is there something you want to add to their conversation?"
He smiled. He had great teeth. "Nothing that would interest them."
I laughed. "Must be hard science, then."
The smile stayed. "Of a sort."
I leaned in conspiratorially. "Keep it to yourself, then. They all act like they're seekers of the Great Truth, but sometimes I think they like the speculation more. At this point whatever truth there may be would fall short of their expectations."
"I think I agree."
"You should. I'm right."
"So what about you? I didn't notice a 'we' in your observation."
I straightened up. In a place where everyone thinks they've got the answers it's rare you get asked your take.
"I believe," I said as straightforwardly as I could. "I follow the time-honored 'the universe is too big for there to be just us' philosophy. Besides, I...saw something once, and I wasn't able to explain it. I can't disallow it, say it was a shooting star or a helicopter. I don't know, and I can't brush it off with an unfounded explanation. So..." I gestured around me. "Here I am."
"That's why you work here?"
"No, and it's wrong for me to make it seem so. Actually, it's a lot less mystical than that. This place is owned by some billionaire eccentric from Texas who likes the UFO phenomenon, and so he maintains this diner as a place to share information. For him it's the idea of the place, kind of like a Space Age version of 17th or 18th century Paris. Anyway, he needed a certain kind of people to run the joint. What I make as a waitress is downright sinful, and all I have to do is serve coffee and keep discussions rolling, if not contribute occasionally. Anyway, it's enough to live on by myself, and it's the best, maybe most suitable, job a philosophy major could have."
"Philosophy?" he asked, sounding amused.
"Yeah. I just sound like a yokel."
"It's a charming mix."
Was I actually blushing? "Thanks," I said. "Uh, I really need to get back to the counter." I made a few more excuses of equal importance and all but ran back to my station. My heart was pounding, and there were a dozen icky girl things going on in me I'm sure you don't want to hear about.
I passed Weird Beard on the way beating the retreat I had prophesied.
Mike and the others were seated again at the counter, chuckling smugly amongst themselves. I joined in, and the conversation rolled on. Star Trek is always a popular topic. Real UFO research and space opera have never seemed like a logical fit to me, but many of the men and women who pass through are fans. I guess that makes me a fan by osmosis since I soak up what's going on and can hold a legitimate conversation without ever having seen an episode. One time this guy who was obviously looking for some action suggested I was a dead ringer for Seven of Nine. I'd seen a photo. We're both tall, we both claim to be blondes; the similarities end there. I thanked him politely and pointedly handed him the check. I mean, what else can a girl do? We don't yet have enough control of society that we can castrate a slimy pig when the mood strikes us. O the oppression!
It happened at nightfall. At the time I was serving a Country Breakfast Special to a Stephen Hawking look-alike (sans the wheelchair and that disarming smile) who felt eating at a diner meant having breakfast for dinner. This idea didn't please Muncey one bit, and I caught an earful when I handed him the ticket. I'd been on shift for twenty hours by then, and I was the last person he wanted to mess with.
"Just do what I said and cook the damned food," I barked. Muncey did, and I served it. With a smile.
"Hey, Rochelle, you got me on a 'pay no mind' list or something?" Mike was still here, and sleep deprivation was starting to give him the obnoxious impression he was Joe Pesci. I whirled to give him the same treatment I'd given Muncey when all Hell broke loose.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God!"
It takes a lot for somebody to get holy in a place like this. Jesus is about as out of place here as sunscreen on turtle, and every head in the joint, mine included, turned to see. It was Table Five, the one with Bearded Guy and the Pseudo-Gates. They had a visitor, Pale Rider, and they were both recoiling from him as if he were a rattlesnake selling a vacuum cleaner made by Satan. The crowd, sensing something was about to go down, moved in, their coffee cups forgotten. Pale Rider glanced around. He looked ready to bolt. Feeling a need to protect him I shoved my way into the throng.
"What's going on here?" I demanded. I felt more than heard the massive displacement of air as Muncey moved in behind me. If he was sensing trouble... I don't know, it just worried me.
"Who yelled?" I asked Bill.
"You know damn good and well it was me," he shouted. "And you know why, too. You've been serving him coffee all afternoon."
I looked at Pale Rider. He was as wide-eyed as the rest of us and shaking his head. "What did you say to them?" I asked him.
"Nothing," he said simply.
"Well something certainly spooked them," Mike argued. I thought I heard someone mutter "CIA," and I'm sure I heard "Spook" and "MIB." I've said before this is an interesting cross-section of humanity, but it's one that I'm sure has its share of crazies alongside the sane. Talk of the alleged enemy, the people who supposedly hide the truth, was a dangerous topic. Enough of that, and we could have a riot on our hands even Muncey couldn't deter. I had to do something fast for Pale Rider's sake; it looked like it was about to get ugly.
"Hang on," I shouted above the growing noise. "Before everybody starts a new conspiracy theory here I want to know what's going on."
Bill looked at Pale Rider. "Show them," he said.
"Show us what?" It was then that I noticed my friend was hiding his hands under the table again. Pocket pool, the comedian in me joked, but this was no time for laughing. "Let me see your hands."
"It's nothing," he protested the whole time he was pulling them out. And there it was. Sure I'd noticed he had big hands, sort of too big in proportion to his body. I'd overlooked them. No big deal, a part of me had said. Big hands don't mean nothing but big hands. Now I looked closer. They were big because each finger had an extra joint.
"There it is," someone in the back remarked, and we all knew what he was saying. This was the proof.
"So what have you got to say for yourself?" Bill demanded. "What's the idea in coming here? Do you want to study us closer? Is that it? Are the abductions not enough?" He sounded angry. That could be a bad sign.
"They're staking out our meeting places," the Stephen Hawking clone offered.
"Figures they'd look like Eurotrash," Mike muttered. A burly, bearded guy next to me, who looked more like a lumberjack than a UFO-phile, grunted in agreement. No, this didn't look good at all.
"It could be the invasion," someone surmised.
"They want to destroy the people who know." Now that statement sounded like the hysteria before a lynch mob. I stepped between them and Pale Rider.
"Stop!" I shouted. "You're all going off half-cocked. Why don't you listen to what he has to say before you start passing judgment? For all we know his hands could be a birth defect, and you're all treating him like he personally anal probed Whitley Streiber. Now let him speak, dammit." I turned to Pale Rider. "You better say something," I advised.
He looked at the crowd. He was more bewildered than scared. "I was passing through on my way to Yuma," he said. "I was tired. I needed a cup of coffee."
"Nonsense," the Bill Gates look-alike said. "You can't ingest Terran materials. That would kill you."
Pale Rider looked at him. "What?"
"Caught you, didn't I?"
"Do you have a digestive tract?" Mike asked.
"He should be secreting excrement through his pores."
"He's got eyelids. Are we sure he's not a hybrid?"
"Fingernails. Hmmm."
"What happened to my wife? Why did she die of leukemia?"
"You guys gave us the Bible, right?"
"What's in Yuma?"
The last question, from Mike of all people, brought the questions to a halt. A beat later they resumed, but this time everything centered on Yuma. Pale Rider sat perfectly still until finally he'd had enough and raised his hands for them to stop talking. Again the silence came, but this time Pale Rider filled it. He took charge with a simple change of body language, from unassuming traveler to robust god-stature, all in a squaring of shoulders and clearing of eyes. When everyone had quieted down he swept everyone with his gaze. Commanding. Powerful. I could see myself falling for him then, even if he was an alien. Or hybrid. Or whatever.
"Please. I came here for a cup of coffee. I heard this man here." It was Bill's turn to shift uneasily when attentions focused on him. "He and another were talking about SETI using lasers to communicate. This interested me. I merely wanted to speak further about it. I meant no harm. I told Rochelle here I had something I wanted to say, but she advised me against it. I can now see why."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Muncey demanded. Twenty pairs of eyes turned to me. I tried not to shrink.
"Just what are you trying to do, Rochelle?" Mike asked. "Are you trying to hide the truth from us?"
"Oh shut up, Mike!" I shot back. He looked at me funny. Oops. I guess he's not a Mike after all.
"What I'm saying is your theories are for the most part unfounded," Pale Rider continued. "I thought to give you something more concrete, but Rochelle here said you seemed more interested in theories than facts. I think I believe her."
Well, those weren't my exact words, but I didn't protest.
"What did you have to say?" the Stephen Hawking guy asked.
"I'll tell you, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. Right now I'm tired, and I need rest."
"Why should we trust you?" someone shouted.
"What are you gonna do, stop him from leaving?" I shouted back. "He has a right to walk out of here, people. He said he'd come back tomorrow and tell everyone his secret. Until then leave him be."
There were one or two small protests, but they didn't amount to much. The crowd was willing to go to their respective motels and wait until morning. Anything for something from the Man From Space who'd been swilling coffee with them for the past four hours. A few left then, others went back to their tables, but everyone left Pale Rider alone. He'd in a roundabout way demanded it. Sonia, my relief, came through the door just as Pale Rider was about to leave. I set her up as best I could then ran after outside after him.
"Wait up," I called. He turned around and looked at me, and under the pale light of a desert moon he looked like an angel. "Do you have a place to stay tonight?" He shook his head and gave the briefest of smiles. What was I doing, I thought? I didn't know this guy from Adam, and at that moment I realized I didn't care. I tell you, working at the Nowhere Café will make a weirdo of anybody.
I took him back to my trailer. We drank a beer under the pretense of winding down, then we made love three times: in the shower, on the couch, and then outside under the stars. He certainly didn't feel like an alien. Afterward, we fell asleep in each other's arms.
Pale Rider was gone by morning. I never even got his name.
I slept another five hours after that and got to work just in time to take over from Sonia's relief, Bonnie. The people from the night before were there, and when I told them about Pale Rider's disappearance they weren't really that upset. What they'd come up with in the past twenty-four hours was far better than anything he could have told them. It's just as I always have said...
By the way, I looked up that phrase Pale Rider had used. The whole of it reads, "The difficulty of savages is they want to be civilized, whereas the civilized want to be savages."
Sometimes I sit and think about why he said it, and how. Alien or no, I wonder if it had some significance or if he was just being glib. I guess like the rest that come through here, I may never know.
END
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